So it's time for the final full day in China. We won't be doing too much today besides picking up our laundry, going to the supermarket to buy an extra memory card, and meeting Ada for lunch. Besides those things, nothing really left to do. My briefing for NK is at 4 and by this time tomorrow I'm sure I'll be packing up and getting ready to head over there. Before that though, we took a stroll through the fake clothing market, but I'll tell you, there were some really good fakes. Like a Canada Goose jacket that usually costs $300-$500 was $60 here. The price gave it away immediately but if they didnt mention the price, the jacket would've convinced me it was real. We ended the day with a final Peking duck dinner, at a restaurant that can be deemed acceptable to average in service. The food was ok, but the real meal was supposed to be the Peking duck. It was delicious, which made up for the service. Even got to see the duck carved up at our table!
My final thoughts on China: Coming here for the first time, I had some very high expectations. Some were met while others fell completely short or werent achieved at all. The things I'll remember China the most for are: the Peking duck dinners, walking the Great Wall, visiting Tiananmen Square and Mao's mausoleum, walking the Forbidden City, visiting the Temple of Heaven, seeing the Zhou Enlai statue and having dinner with Su's family in Tianjin, and all the tea I drank. Those are the ones I'll remember the most.
Of course, there are things that were just plain awful that I'd rather just forget. First, the lack of hot running water in taps for the first 2 days or so, the squat toilets, the lack of heating in some places, and the Tianjin trip was just complete hell. Out of all those things, Tianjin was the worst of all, combining all those things into one place, and also add in a horrible public transportation system, lazy taxi drivers, and train stations built in the middle of nowhere. I swear I will not recommend anyone to travel there unless they want to drive there and experience freezing or lose weight by walking between bus stops, taxi stands or subway stations and not actually see any sights or attractions.
Oh and I also need to say something about the drivers and pedestrians here in China: They're both crazy! Pedestrians just seem to cross where and whenever they please, while drivers sometimes do the same thing. And if not for that, they just speed recklessly, like last night when we were walking to dinner, some taxi sped on the wrong side of the road just to pass a slow car when there was traffic heading straight towards it too. And this was on a two lane road. I don't want to add to the stereotype that Asian drivers are bad, they're not since I haven't seen or heard of any accidents while I was here, they're just reckless and almost ignore all traffic laws and drive like it's a race between themselves and all the other cars.
Overall, China was ok. Some of it I'll remember forever and others I'd much rather forget. Would I visit again? Yes, but perhaps not Beijing and after I learn some mandarin. China has been at times very exciting and very boring at others, but above all it's extremely inexpensive and tiring. It felt good to visit my homeland for the first time and I know I'll be back again. Finally, I'd like to thank Su for guiding and accompanying me in Beijing. He could've easily said no and this trip might've been a lonely nightmare, so until we meet again my friend.
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